Devils, Rangers to meet again in Times Union Center exhibition

NHL preseason hockey will return to Albany this fall when the New Jersey Devils face the New York Rangers at the Times Union Center on Wednesday, Sept. 26, the Albany Devils revealed via an email announcing a ticket pre-sale earlier today.

According to the email, fans have the opportunity to pre-purchase tickets to the game in a special pre-sale taking place between today and 10 p.m. Friday. Tickets will be available to the general public beginning at 10 a.m. Saturday and will range from $19.50 to $52 per ticket.
The Times Union Center was the site of an exhibition game between both clubs in September when the Devils defeated the Rangers 2-1 in overtime in front of an arena-NHL-record crowd of 9,420, so it comes as no surprise that the Devils would want to bring the rival Rangers back to Albany for an encore.

While the ticket pre-sale has revealed details about this year’s exhibition game, no official announcement regarding the game has been made. We will post additional information here as soon as it becomes available.

Not necesarily the residents of the cities, but the fans in between. I’m a NYR fan, and when they move to ADK I’ll be going up there. I live between Albany and ADK. Devils will lose some fans. Back when the CDI began playing in Troy, ARW lost hundreds of STH. That was reported in the TU, and can be found in the archives still. SWB, Hershey, and the area in the included triangle is Flyers country. Who will they support?

Look at Springfield’s attendance since Worcester and Hartford have joined the league, same situation.

Last year it was MSG that reached out to TUC to bring Albany some pre-season NHL. Who reached out to who this year? I was there last year and I’ll be back this year. If the Rangers ever move the farm up to ALB or ADK i’ll be the first in line to get season tickets.

I’m with Al in post 6, what a great game 7 and the rangers advance. The NJ devils are about to go into OT.

I’m now told that it is a Rangers home game as the next phase of reconstruction takes place at MSG.

To those who jokingly (I think) referred to the concession problems, I’m confident you won’t get a repeat of that performance. If you check out the bottom of this post from January, you’ll understand my confidence that things have been rectified.

@Pete If this is the case I have to wonder why is it that the Rangers keep on reaching out to bring us pre-season hockey and not the devils? I also wonder if the devils will act like its their home game like they did last time. Last season I knew it was a Rangers home game and that MSG brought it to us. It annoyed me and a number of ranger fans that it seemed that the devils org was treating it like it was their home game. I don’t remember but i’m pretty sure the rangers wore away jersey for it too.

@Dirty Crow: You are correct in that the Devils wore their “home” reds and the Rangers wore the whites. The Devils also used the home locker room.

These are games the SMG, which manages the Times Union Center, has gone out and acquired. The Albany Devils, as the building’s main tenant, obviously offered assistance to the game operation, and that may be why it felt like a Devils’ home game. I’m sure the Rangers appreciated any assistance they could get from the Devils.

@pete, just saying it was a Rangers home game and it should have been treated as such by the TUC. I can understand the NJD getting the home locker room, but Rangers wearing away colors and all the video boards pumping it like it was a NJD home game was wrong.

You’re right about the crowd response from the sea of blue in the stands. Thats something SMG should take into consideration if and when the hockey gods should smile and a chance to get the Rangers farm team into Albany ever materializes.

There is a tax deal with NYS and MSG that the Rags play a certain amount of games in NYS. With construction ongoing they need suitable places to play. Albany benefits from this deal. Obviously most of the whining Rags fans don’t know what it takes to make it “look” like a Rangers home game. Believe me when I say this the Rangers treated it like a road game, all prep and game related materials were provided by the Devs and their staff both front office and trainers. SMG had almost nothing to do with producing the game other than opening the doors, turning on the lights, and showing MSGnetwork where to set up. The ice was barely usable and we all know about the concessions. Hopefully these issues are corrected.